In his grand truism theory, Kurt Lewin introduced a heuristic equation B=f (P, E), meaning that behavior is a function of the person-environment interaction (Kihlstrom, 2013). On the other hand, there is the environment. The environmental factors are a factor outside the person's character. When broken down, the environment comprises of both the physical environment and the social environment. According to Kurt Lewin, every behavior is a social behavior, meaning that behaviors are greatly influenced by the social environment in which one functions (Kihlstrom, 2013). Based on this brief introduction, this paper presents the analysis of a personal situation and life experience. The paper draws heavily from Lewin’s grand truism and also from the doctrine of situationism. The objective is to show how my behavior has over the years been influenced by the personal traits as well as by the social environment with which I have interacted over the years.
The paper begins with a brief background on my personal experience. In this paper, I chose to use my baseball experience to illustrate the interaction between the social environment and the personal character in shaping behavior. I was a highly regarded high school baseball player. I was recruited by multiple division I schools across the country. I ultimately got the opportunity to be drafted by the Atlanta Braves during my senior year of high school and began to play professional minor league baseball. I was only able to play for a year because I suffered multiple knee injuries that caused me to leave the professional game. The heartache of not being able to play baseball professionally weighed on me heavily emotionally. However, the situation allowed me to make decisions to go back to school, earn my undergraduate degree, and go on to earn multiple graduate degrees as well. The experience also taught me many life lessons in that working hard and not giving up helps you to achieve your goals. I would also say that these factors have helped me in my professional life working and managing employees and helping them find their goals and how to achieve them.
The situation presented above can be assessed by Kurt Lewin’s grand truism theory. According to the theory, the behavior is a product of inherent personal and the environmental factors (Kihlstrom, 2013). Personal factors include factors, such as the individual’s mental state, the character traits, attitude, and other behavioral dispositions. During my younger years, all I knew was that baseball was the clear-cut path to my success. I loved playing baseball, reveled in every success, and tolerated every hurt that came with it. There was no single moment in my young life in which I imagined that I would ever stop playing football save for old age. Then came the multiple knee injuries and the doctor’s order that I was not supposed to continue playing baseball.
The ban from baseball was something that I never anticipated, and I was not mentally prepared. At first, I was distraught and broken thinking that my life was ruined. However, I still had resilience within me that said that I could still succeed in life, and it is this resilience that pushed to proving the world that I could look into alternative avenues through which I could be successful. I took the initiative to look at the things that motivated me and found that the feeling that I got after a successful endeavor or an achievement is what pushed me to achieve more. Achievement motivated me. Secondly, I focused on what I could do to feel accomplished and successful. Having been only one year after high school and with no formal training in any career field, I felt a deep desire to push forward with my education considering that it was the only viable option. I joined college and dedicated more time to my studies. I would still go to watch baseball but instead of feeling sorry that I was not able to join the other players, I used the moment to learn about how the inherent vigor and rigor could be converted into the input in another activity such as my studies. It is this energy that I would later convert into several graduate degrees and diplomas later in life. According to the doctrine of traits, I would conclude that resilience, determination, and my cognitive abilities played an important role in helping me determine the appropriate course of action after leaving Atlanta Braves (Kihlstrom, 2013).
Motivation is an important aspect of the external social environment, and there are various ways through the social environment motivates an individual hence influencing their behavior (Weiner, 2012). On many occasions, the idea of self-motivation comes up, and it has been used to explain people's character, but most importantly, the concept is used to explain a person's behavior. On many occasions, people take a single graduate degree, and they are satisfied with that but there are other like me who seek to push the limits and the motivation for such a person must be more than the money, security, and other such factors that have for long been theorized by renown behavioral theorists (Weiner, 2012). At times, I consider self-motivation to be greater than the self-actualization motivation as presented by Abraham Maslow. However, for the lack of a better word, I still consider it to be part of self-actualization (Barrick, Mount, & Li, 2013). Other than resilience and determination, the other personal factor that contributed my success was self-motivation driven by the need for self-actualization. I consider this to be the only factor that best explains why I had to pursue several graduate diplomas and degrees.
My behavior after leaving Atlanta Braves was not solely a product of personal traits which is why I find that Kurt Lewin’s grand truism theory plays an important role in defining behavior. For a long period after leaving Atlanta Braves, I felt that life had been taken away from me as I considered baseball to be my life. However, I had a strong support system comprising of friends, family, and even my counselors. I remember going to the field on crutches trying to prove that I could get back to the game and though I did not play, being among the players and holding the gear made me feel better. My friends encouraged me always and made me realize that there was life after baseball. According to the doctrine of situationism, the social behavior varies with changes in the features of the external environment; particularly the social situation (Kihlstrom, 2013). In sync with this understanding, I consider that the social support system that I got into immediately after learning that I could no longer play professional baseball was a major factor in my learning that I could do more with the energy and determination that I had in playing baseball. As I would learn and come to appreciate, dedicating this energy and determination towards another course of action were all that was required for me to find my footing again and this was majorly enabled by the characteristics of the team and its organization (Kihlstrom, 2013).
The social environment as a system acts as a source of inspiration and at the same time a source of motivation. I learnt this after joining college and realized that the stiff competition that existed in the baseball team with everyone trying hard to be the best was the same thing that was happening in the college. Everybody attempted to outdo the other while at the same time team work focused on developing and advancing the agenda of the team as a whole. This social environment influenced my systematic acceptance of the new situation that I was in. Most importantly, the new experience shaped my resolve with regard to what I wanted to pursue and how much I wanted to pursue those goals in terms of career development. I did not lose my friends from the baseball team but I also gained new friends in academia and in the office and as a consequence, I have come to understand my life and experiences as a culture that combines the energy and rigor from the baseball field with the pursuit of expertise and professionalism that characterizes the professional career. Overall, the experiences influence my behavior.
Several years after my professional baseball experience at Atlanta Braves, I still use this experience to motivate other people. The experience enabled me to understand the doctrine of interactionism, especially in light of how personal traits are brought together into a team, enhanced, and used to create a social system that in return influences a person's behaviors. The concept sheds light on matters of social behavior as well as the development of character and as per my little experience, the interplay between behavior, and personal character, and the environment is cyclical in that the social environment is made through the interaction between various personal traits and experiences. Under the doctrine of interactionism, therefore, I consider that my experience during and after the short-lived feature in the Atlanta Braves team was the result of an interactive system of personal and group characteristics and that the experience shaped my persona long after leaving the team.
In concluding, this paper confirms the grand truism from the analysis of a personal experience. The grand truism theory proposes that behavior is a function of the person-environment interaction. To prove this model, the paper focused on a personal experience drawn from years ago when I was a professional baseball player with the Atlanta Braves. The professional baseball career ended after I got multiple knee injuries. The experience at the Atlanta Braves influenced my choices after being unable to participate in the game. The new social groups that I joined after joining college also influenced my personality and behavior. Based on this scenario, the paper asserts that in addition to the new social environments that I interacted with after Atlanta Braves, the interaction with team at Atlanta Braves in my formative years has had great influence on my behavior and on my personality.
References
Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Li, N. (2013). The theory of purposeful work behavior: The role of personality, higher-order goals, and job characteristics. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), 132-153.
Kihlstrom, J. F. (2013). The person-situation interaction. The Oxford handbook of social cognition, 786-805. New York: OUP USA
Weiner, B. (2012). An attribution theory of motivation. Handbook of theories of social psychology, 1, 135-155.
